


You Were My Spring, My Summer Too

by RS_Games



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, First War with Voldemort, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2019-01-10 06:40:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12293442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RS_Games/pseuds/RS_Games
Summary: R/S Games 2017 - Day 8 - Team SiriusWhen Sirius receives news that things have gone very wrong on an assignment, he heads north to bring Remus home.(byolivier-dathos)





	You Were My Spring, My Summer Too

**Author's Note:**

> **Team:** Sirius  
>  **Title:** You Were My Spring, My Summer Too  
>  **Rating:** PG  
>  **Genres:** Angst, Romance  
>  **Word Count:** 3500  
>  **Summary:** When Sirius receives news that things have gone very wrong on an assignment, he heads north to bring Remus home.  
>  **Notes:** Set during the First War. Thank you to all those who have participated in the Games throughout the years. In my mind, I was writing this fic for those who left me so much love on my very first RS Games piece. I’ll never forget that feeling.  
>  **Prompt:** #6 - _“The flocks head north and the lilacs bloom_  
>  _At night they scent my moonlit room_  
>  _You were my spring, my summer too_  
>  _I'm going north to look for you"_  
>  \- from the song "North" by Joan Baez

The wind was cold where it stung Sirius’ face; he supposed that winter hadn’t entirely let go yet. He could feel ice in his bones, imagined it frosting his hair and skin and the pupils of his eyes. He could feel it working through his veins, his blood freezing and numbing his senses, leaving him with nothing but a rushing in his ears and an eerie blankness.

Benjy stepped closer, reached out a hand as though he were going to touch him, but then didn’t. Sirius focussed on his hand, suspended awkwardly between them, and not on the words he had just spoken.

He counted the freckles on Benjy’s fingers, and looked for a scar he knew he wouldn’t find.

“Sirius, I’m sorry. I just thought you should know.”

Benjy’s voice was distant, muted, but Sirius looked up anyway.

“Where is he?” He asked, afraid that the ice spreading through his body would reach his throat before he could get the words out. “Where can I find him?”

Sirius recognised the look in Benjy’s face, but ignored it. He didn’t care if Benjy Fenwick thought he was the type of man that grief would drive crazy. The type of man that grief would make impulsive, irrational. He was already those things. Grief would not change that and Sirius had never cared what people thought of him.

“Look, Sirius, they said there were no survivors. It was an ambush. A bloodbath. The mark was in the sky.” He hesitated and Sirius could almost taste the sympathy, the wariness, the sensation of being tiptoed around. “You’re not going to find anyone waiting there for you.”

“Nevertheless….” He bit out.

Benjy rubbed his eyes tiredly and sighed.

*

Sirius didn’t bother telling Dumbledore he was coming.

He trudged up the path from Hogsmeade, the snow already melted away and only a thin frost coating the premature blooms either side. He watched the distant shapes of students flitting above the Quidditch pitch: early morning practice, life sheltered from the war outside. He remembered flying through the same skies, James nearby. Remus reading in the grass on the side of the pitch.

It had felt, at the time, as though it would all last forever. Sirius remembered the dives he had taken, the moves he had pulled and the disappointment he had felt if, when he glanced down to check, Remus didn’t seem to have noticed. It hadn’t mattered though; there was always another risk to take, another prank to pull, another way to catch Remus’ attention. An escalation that caused Remus to roll his eyes and kiss Sirius slowly so that he had no choice but to pause and breathe and slow down.

“You don’t need to impress me, Sirius.” He would whisper against Sirius’ skin. “You don’t even need to _try_.”

And shivers had run down Sirius’ spine.

Time had moved on though, despite the prayers Sirius had sent into the heavens asking it to please stay still and let them go on like this for just a little longer. Now other children flew through the skies and met their first loves by the greenhouses at night.

Sirius thought of Remus in a coffin beneath the ground and his step faltered.

Dumbledore didn’t seem surprised when he opened the door to his office to let Sirius in.

“I want you to be prepared, Sirius, for what you might find. For what you might not find.”

Sirius looked at the clock on the wall, at the glint of sunlight on the glass of the window. He looked at the old man before him and how calm and poised he remained. An ugly feeling burned at his throat.

“I’m not leaving him there, whatever the case. I’m not staying here, whatever the case.”

Dumbledore nodded and flicked his wand. A small slip of paper floated into Sirius’ hand. “Did Remus tell you where he was going?” Dumbledore asked mildly and Sirius felt himself bristle instantly.

“No,” he replied, jaw tense. “Your instructions, I thought.”

“Quite.” Dumbledore looked pensive for a moment and then gestured to the paper. “I have a contact in Oslo. He’ll know where Remus was. I’ll let him know you’re coming?”

“Please.” Sirius glanced at the paper and then tucked it into the pocket of his jeans. His fingers twitched and he stood abruptly.

“Sirius,” Dumbledore called softly as Sirius turned to go. “I am sorry, and I do wish you the best of luck.”

Sirius grunted. Luck was not what he needed. Neither was hope. But he would travel to where Remus was stationed and he would see what there was to see and he would find a way to grieve when the time came in his own way and on his own terms and on his own.

*

Sirius had been to Oslo before. Once, in their first year out of school (not long ago at all and yet an age had passed since then) they had come here, the four of them and Lily, and they had walked its streets and sat in its parks and at night Sirius had taken Remus out to clubs full of men whose language they didn’t speak and whose eyes had run over them, hot and heavy.

But Remus had only ever danced with Sirius and it was only ever Sirius’ lips that he kissed and Sirius’ hands that he allowed to touch him. And Sirius had only ever been able to see Remus, and nothing else, no one else, in the flash of discothèque lights.

*

Alexander was a small and portly man who enjoyed talking entirely too much considering the times they were living in.

“What I was told – and mind you I was not there, as I have said already – but what I was told is that thirty Death Eaters- yes, you heard me right, thirty! – descended suddenly on the place and there was no chance, no chance for anyone. It was not one Dark Mark that lit the sky, it was one for every person who they slaughtered! But you will find nothing there now, my friend. I was told – confidentially too – that after the slaughter, they burned the bodies…”

Sirius could not trust the words of a man like Alexander. Sirius would not trust them. Men like Alexander were dangerous, with their blathering and gossip-mongering, and Sirius had too much to do, too much to think about, his heart was clenched too tight, to listen to the words of a fool like Alexander.

“Where exactly was this?” He asked and felt a sick satisfaction when Alexander had to jog a little to keep up with his pace.

“Not too far from Reine. You must go to Leinesfjord – it’s the safest way – and then boat across to Reine - a fisherman will take you for a price – and then ask at the harbour for Kristoffer Haugen – you can’t be too careful these days. Rumour has it that they’re waiting there you know, for someone like you to show up, for someone to be lured in. I wouldn’t go, if I were you. Silly decision – “

“Thank you for all your help.” Sirius smiled sharply and Alexander stopped talking instantly. “I’ll be fine from here.”

He left the city, changed into his animagus form, and made his way north.

*

Sirius looked at the islands to his left, at the new grass beneath his paws, at the birds who flew above him, winging their way back after the winter. He longed to catch one, to chase after them and jump high and roll in the grass and swim in the rough waters. But he longed for Remus more.

Sirius remembered nights spent running wild through the Forbidden Forest with his wolf by his side. His family. On those nights, he would roll over and stretch his neck out and let Moony bite gently at the skin there, his teeth sharp but never drawing blood. And Sirius had not been afraid because this was Remus and Sirius would love him whatever happened.

Afterwards Remus would call him foolish, would chastise him for gambling with his life, would remind Sirius that Moony did not know him, did not care. But later Remus would bury his face into Sirius’ neck and kiss the skin there and Sirius would smile.

Sirius imagined never seeing that smile again and never feeling that kiss again and he ran until he was exhausted and slept beneath the stars and the waning moon.

*

It wasn’t too hard to find a fisherman willing to make the trip to Reine even though it was a strange request. Sirius thought that perhaps some of these people knew why he was going to the place even though they didn’t say. Some of them watched him as the boat left the harbour and Sirius thought of Alexander’s warning and found that he simply did not care.

“Funny business near Reine,” the fisherman said, once they were out on the water with no one to hear. “All covered up, but I hear things…”

“What did you hear,” Sirius said, looking out at the water and thinking of all the times he had pushed James into the lake back at Hogwarts. All the times they had tried to lure the giant squid closer using Peter as bait. All the times he and Remus had rushed onto its frozen edge during snow ball fights in winter and the one time the ice had cracked and Sirius had fallen and Remus had been right there pulling him away from the ice water beneath and against the warmth of his body instead.

“Strange things,” the man said, leaning in closer as though the air itself could be listening. “Some kind of attack, you know. But they’re covering it up now.”

Sirius just nodded and looked back out at the clear water. He wished he could use magic to make the boat go faster.

“I heard,” the fisherman continued, still looking at Sirius intently, “that the only survivors fled to Svalbard, but no one knows how they got there.”

Sirius snatched his hand from the water where it was trailing and looked up. He calmed his heart, he refused to let hope reach him. “Where did you hear this?”

The fisherman shrugged, though he looked please to have Sirius’ undivided attention now. “I have a brother on Svalbard. I hear things.” He paused and for a moment Sirius thought that he would say no more. “I heard,” the man said again, more hesitant this time, “that the survivors worship a man in a glass mountain and any man who goes near, they carve him up and eat his flesh.”

Sirius looked away, he trailed his hand back into the water once more. He thought of Remus with blank unseeing eyes. He thought of Remus with snow spread around him and fire licking at his clothes. He ignored the ramblings of this mad old man.

*

Sirius found Kristoffer Haugen in a bar by the bay. He was a man with lines around his eyes and grey streaks in his dark hair. He spoke steadily, but Sirius thought he had the look of the haunted about him.

“I was with him, out at the camp,” he said. They sat across from each other at a grimy little pub table in a quiet corner. “I don’t know what you’ve heard. I don’t know what you know.”

“Were you there when the attack happened?” Sirius asked, trying to look calm, trying to look steady, the ice in his blood piercing sharply now. “Did you see what happened?”

“I was in town – we trade with them, you know. It’s part of it all. If you want support, you have to earn trust first – but I was in town. By the time I got back there…” He trailed off and looked away. Sirius scraped a hand through his unkempt hair and bit down hard on his bottom lip.

“Were there bodies?”

“Some. I never found Remus’ body, I know that’s what you’re really asking. I know who you are.” The man replied, but he still didn’t meet Sirius’ eye. “I’ll take you there, if you’d like, but no one could have survived that and I don’t think you’ll find anything to bring you peace.”

Sirius looked out across the pub. He watched the people laugh over their drinks. He traced the thin line of condensation left by his glass with a finger. He remembered when they had first moved into the little apartment in London. Eighteen months ago, he supposed. There had been no furniture so they’d had their housewarming at the local pub.

Lily had drunk only lemonade; she had been pregnant already, though none of them had known that yet, not even James. Peter had bought four rounds himself and they had teased that somehow he had become wealthier while the rest of them slowly went broke. James had bet five galleons that Sirius and Remus, in their slightly inebriated state, wouldn’t be able to make it to the end of the night without snogging in public.

James had won.

Sirius remembered the feel of Remus’ lips against his own. He remembered the tug of Remus’ hands curling in his hair, Remus’ jawline beneath his fingers where he stroked gently. He remembered the way Remus looked at him with adoration and how it had made Sirius’ chest hurt. He remembered the honey flecks in Remus’ eyes just before he closed them and ducked his head abashedly at the realisation of where they were and what they’d just done.

He thought about what it would be like to bury an empty coffin and then place a plaque above it with the name of the only person you had ever loved. He thought about what it would be like to visit a grave with no one in it and then downed the rest of his drink in one.

*

Sirius searched the ruined werewolf camp until late into the evening. He could tell people had lived here in some number. Sirius could see the signs of an organised community: paths and the stone foundations of dwellings, a fallen line with clothing still hanging from it, a child’s toy.

But it wouldn’t take long for this place to sink back into the nature surrounding it. All around the earth was scorched, the buildings were burnt. Kristoffer had been right: there were no bodies now.

Sirius used every spell he knew, searching for life, searching for Remus. There were traces of magic: apparition and disapparition, as well as curses that had missed their mark. But there was nothing that proved that any of this was the work of Remus.

When Sirius found a faded green scarf which he had gifted Remus back in sixth year behind the ruins of a stone shack on the edge of the community, he felt his breath catch. For the first time the sting of tears made their way to Sirius’ eyes: a piece of Remus had been left behind here, proof that he had once been in this god-forsaken place. Proof that this was real.

Sirius had found the scarf in a muggle market after he’d run away from home. He had thought of Remus’ hair and Remus’ eyes and of wrapping it around Remus’ neck on a cold winter morning and he had spent the only muggle money he’d thought to shove in his pocket right then and there.

Remus, of course, had thought it was too much and had blushed something terrible when Sirius had first wound it around him and had never gone anywhere without it again.

Sirius looked up to the sky, blinked the tears away and wrapped the scarf firmly around his neck. He wasn’t finished yet. He wouldn’t let go just yet.

Kristoffer didn’t say anything when Sirius turned to leave, but Somehow Sirius appreciated his presence all the same.

*

Spring had not yet come to Svalbard. Or, if it had, Sirius was not able to recognise the signs. It was snowing when he arrived and the further Sirius ventured away from civilisation, the more it turned into sleet.

Sirius threw caution to the wind, the green scarf tight around his neck, and asked strangers about other strangers who may have arrived in a night not long past.

“There were two men and three women,” one wizard said, pointing away into the darkness. “They came in the night, they bled on the snow, but the next morning more people followed and they hunted them down and they buried them out there.”

“Three men,” an old woman told him, pointing away, ever further away. “One was only young. They were half-frozen when they passed through this area. They were badly injured. They died in the night.”

“There is a man,” a small boy said and he drew a map to the glacier on the snow at his feet. “And he sat all alone in a cave that he’d made of snow, and he built a fire though there was nothing to burn, and he froze to death all alone.”

“There were a few,” a fisherman told him, “but they weighed them down with rocks and they threw them in the ocean and people were too scared to step in so they all just left. That’s what I heard.”

Sirius shivered in the cold and looked above at the lights dancing in the sky. He remembered how Remus has always wanted to see the aurora borealis and how he had promised him that one day, after the war, they would travel to a place like this, escape from the world and watch the sky dance.

Sirius didn’t know how the seasons would go on without Remus’ smile to thaw the winter. Sirius didn’t know what he was doing, searching for a myth who lived in an ice cave and ate strangers, but perhaps he would stay in this winter place forever too. Without Remus, what else was he supposed to do?

Sirius didn’t know how people expected him to return home without Remus. Sirius didn’t know if he could have returned even if he had found Remus’ body. Sirius imagined the future that lay before him and he thought of all the mistakes he had made and he wished that he had told Remus he loved him every moment of every day.

Sirius felt tears freezing on his cheeks and the ice in his veins seemed to be thawing because suddenly the numbness was gone and Sirius could feel everything and it felt hot and sharp and he buried his face in his hands and cried until he had nothing left to give.

*

On his fifth day on Svalbard, as he finally neared the glacier, Sirius came across a small cave made of snow with a man waiting inside.

He clutched the scarf tightly and his heart stopped for what felt like an eternity and it was only then that he realised he had completely given up all hope of ever seeing this man again.

“You came?” Remus said, his voice scratchy and his eyes framed by shadows. There was blood in his hair.

“Of course,” Sirius replied, but the surprise in Remus’ voice made him feel raw because hadn’t he expected him to come and didn’t they belong to each other and how could Remus have ever thought that he would be able to go on without him? “You survived,” he returned and Remus blinked.

“Of course,” he replied and he smiled but it was strained and Sirius wasn’t sure if it was because of what it may have taken to survive or if it was because Remus felt this conversation was going all wrong the same way that Sirius did or if it was because, whatever Sirius might pretend, Remus had always been going to survive an attack by Death Eaters that nobody else could possibly have survived.

Sirius unwound the scarf from his neck and wrapped it carefully around Remus’ own, but he did not touch his skin and he did not bury his face in his hair and he did not kiss him the way he wished he could. Because as he watched Remus grasp the wool with shaking hands he remembered the fight they had had before Remus left and the information that had been leaking somehow to the enemy and the way that they now slept with their backs to each other at night.

“I was so scared.” He said, and it felt desperate but it came out cold.

“I’m sorry,” Remus whispered and it sounded sincere but it struck Sirius as wrong.

“I love you,” Sirius whispered, and he felt the tears building behind his eyes.

“I love you too,” Remus replied, but it sounded like a lie.

Remus looked at the flames dancing in the grate he had transfigured in the middle of the cave. He curled in on himself, clutched tightly at the frayed edges of the scarf. He shivered in the frozen air.

Sirius looked outside at the snow falling like feathers from a dove.

He unclenched his fists.

He felt the ice creeping back into his soul.


End file.
